Today the third part of our three-part series on those fancy French words that we sort-of know when we read them, although we’d be most unlikely to speak them.
We’ve already looked at ‘élan’ and ‘insouciance’—today the word is ‘louche.’
This word (pronounced loosh) means something like ‘not straightforward’ or ‘not entirely on the up-and-up.’
In Brideshead Revisited Evely Waugh writes, ‘I knew of a louche little bar quite near here.’
He might have meant a bid shady, but attractive none-the-less.
In other words, a bar where criminals meet or drug deals are done in the corner—but which honest people like because it gives a shiver-up-the-spine feeling to be close to the darker side of life.
But I find this a very vague word in English—because it’s meaning can be much looser than that, and it is used by different people in many different ways.
For example, one sentence (quoted by the Merriam-Webster people) says, ‘Suits are cut with louche, wide-legged trousers.’
In that sentence the word seems to be used to mean something that is ‘not-quite-right’, not entirely acceptable in fashionable society.
Can you see what I mean I call this the vaguest of the three words we’ve looked at so far?
Here’s how the Merriam-Webster experts tell the story of this word: ‘Louche ultimately comes from the Latin word luscus, meaning “blind in one eye” or “having poor sight.” This Latin term gave rise to the French louche, meaning “squinting” or “cross-eyed.”
The French gave their term a figurative sense as well, taking that squinty look to mean “shady” or “devious.”
English speakers didn’t see the need for the sight-impaired uses when they borrowed the term in the 19th century (from about 1819), but they kept the figurative one.
The word is still quite visible today and is used to describe both people and things of questionable repute.’
And that’s quite enough French borrowings for the moment—tomorrow, back to real English words.
For Perth readers -- today I will talk words and language on 6PR with Tod Johnston on 'The Long Lunch' (at about 12:20pm).
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